In Tordesillas, Spain, the provincial government ended a tradition that went back to medieval times. The real medieval times, not the fake thing with the turkey legs and people with mouths full of teeth jousting indoors. It was part of a festival where a full-grown bull would be chased by townspeople into a field where, with cheering crowds watching, horse riders would use spears to kill the bull. The slaughter would take a while, much to the delight of the onlookers. But this year, for the first time, the bull was chased and cornered but not slowly stabbed to death.
According to NPR, the locals were enraged by the government's action. Pro-bull-killing protesters marched through the streets, declaring that "Tordesillas isn't giving in." The mayor was livid, saying that the ban had taken away the townspeople's identity, that it "ripped out our spine" and "left us orphaned." The pro-stabbers said animal rights activists had wrecked their way of life. "This isn't about defending the life of one brave bull. It's about defending rural traditions," said a local woman, "It's the central part of our festival. It's our happiness. If you take that away, what do we have left?"
It is, they said, "political correctness" run amok.
Think about that. It's come to this: if you say that a town shouldn't torture an animal to death for your pleasure, you're just trying to destroy traditions and impose your repressive ideology on people who don't want to change. And if you're thinking, "Well, that's, for lack of a better word, bullshit. It's 2016. We only torture animals in large industrial buildings away from prying eyes. We're not barbarians," well, you're just a politically correct twat and a killjoy.
I bring this up because that phrase, "political correctness," is tossed around by the Trump campaign like it's a magic spell that, once recited, will allow you to say whatever assholish thing you want to say.
In just the last couple of days, we've heard it over and over. Bugfuck mad Trump surrogate Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn asserted, talking about the bombings in New York and New Jersey, "Political correctness kills. It will cause death, and we can’t have that." Exactly how political correctness does this is a bit fuzzy because Trump lies about the limitations on the police.
But Trump does want the police to profile people and treat them accordingly. Of course, Trump tells us, the problem is "We're trying to be so politically correct in our country, and this is only going to get worse." Butt-boy Mike Pence agreed, as a butt-boy will do, saying, "I can tell you that this season of political correctness, we both believe, is interrupting the ability of law enforcement officers to really identify people."
In other words, "political correctness" is now shorthand for the rule of law, for civil rights, for the guarantees of fair treatment in the fucking Constitution. You can throw that into the catch-all bucket for the phrase, along with not being able to say "nigger" or "fag" with abandon, treating immigrants like human beings, and sexing up the lady employees being a no-no.
Fucking hell, times change. Civilizations advance. What you once thought was fine is now fucked up. That's the way it goes. The march of progress, as we once liked to call it. You don't fucking spear the bull anymore because we know that's fucked up. And if you don't think it's fucked up, you're fucked up. And we get to say that because we're the ones who want the world to move forward. You're the ones who want to hold it back or send it back to a mythical time of greatness.
You just came up with a fancy way to make being a dick sound like a you're taking a mighty stand when, really, you're just a dick. It's so convenient and so useful.
At this point, Trump could fuck the corpse of that drowned Syrian toddler at a rally, and, when people responded with revulsion and anger, his idiot hordes would say that it's just political correctness, not that baby corpse fucking is, in and of itself, wrong.
